Short Bio:

Danny was born April 23rd, 1952 in St. Peter, Minnesota.  He is the second born of five kids; Marcia, Danny, Janet, Rodney, and Karen. Danny grew up on a farm about 10 miles south of Gaylord, MN and 3 miles west of Norseland. Growing up, they farmed the land and raised cows (dairy and beef), sheep, chickens and pigs.  In 1970, he graduated from Gaylord High School. From there he went onto college at Southwest State Marshall MN. After two years of college, he decided to go work for his Uncle Clarence in road construction in Colorado. In Spring of 1974, he came home and started farming. In the summer of 1978, he met Jenny Hahn. They married in December 1979 and went on to have five kids of their own; Nicholas, Lucas, Ricky, Danielle and Scott.

Back Row from left to right: Lucas, Ricky, Danielle, Scott, Nick

Front Row: Jenny and Danny

We decided to do a quick he said/she said section with Danny and Jenny Tollefson, just for fun!

How did you meet guys meet?

Danny:

Back in the day, when I just started farming, there was still a lot of bean walking to do. The local FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter had what was called a slave cell. Where they would auction off the local FFA members to do farm work for a day to raise money. I bought a few of them to help me pull weeds. When we got done for the day, I went out to the bars and there was a girl there who, I think, had a crush on me. She asked “Can I come out and help pull weeds?” I said “Absoluetly!” The next day, she shows up with Jenny; Jenny went along for the ride. So I met Jenny for the first time out in my soy bean field and I had to teach her how to pull weeds (that was interesting).

What did you think of Jenny when you met her?

Oh, I liked Jenny pretty much right away! I think Jenny knew who I was though (I never asked her about that), but I think she did. After that she would find ways to come talk to me here and there. After a while I called her up and she said she wanted to go to the movies. The night of one of our first dates, I was playing basketball with my cousin Ronnie and I told him I have to go. He said “Where you going Tolly?” [Tolly was Danny’s nickname. Some of his friends still call him Tolly to this day – Ed.] I said “Nowhere. Mind your own business.” After I picked Jenny up in my new Camaro, we were driving out of Gaylord and there I see Ronnie and a bunch of his friends waiting on the main road to see who I had picked up. I shouted, “Quick, get down!” and kind of “helped” Jenny put her head down.  A few blocks later Jenny came up and boy was she fuming! She was spitting fire, man! She said, “You don’t want to be seen with me then you can take me home!” I had to grovel a bit and really try to explain that it was just my cousin. She didn’t care who it was, and I had to spend the whole night trying to make up with her. I let her drive my car and I played the harmonica (I did a lot of stupid stuff trying to make up for my little stunt). After that, we dated sporadically until January when we became exclusive. We only dated six months before getting engaged.

Jenny:

One summer day, my friends from college were visiting me and we had a daiquiri party and we went down to the softball tournament. Danny’s team was playing and they were all blond. I was choosing which one I was going to marry, but kept changing my mind. My friend said (pointing at Danny), “That one is Rod’s brother.” And I said “Okay, then I’ll marry that one!”  Then I completely forgot about it. Later that summer, my friend stopped me while I was heading into the house from a 14-hour shift at the canning factory. She told me to go with her; I thought we were going to get coffee or something. But she convinced me to go along with her to Danny’s soy bean fields. She wanted someone to go with her. That is when I actually met Danny. I had never even been in a field and had no idea which plants were the soybeans and which ones were weeds. So I wasn’t very effective.

What did you think of Danny when you met him?

I thought he was very charming and handsome! I had one good football player friend in college that was telling me “This is not the guy for you. He’s a player and out of your league.”  But I knew his family, I knew his upbringing, and knew he had just been running wild as something to do.

I, later, called Danny up and asked him out, he was living at home at the time so I had to talk to his parents first to talk to him. I wanted to go to the movies in Mankato. But when he picked me up, we were driving out of the town and he said “get down!” I said “what?!?” and he took my head and not forcibly but gently put it down under the dash. I remember thinking he was one of those guys that seems all charming in a group but mean in private. Danny’s action wasn’t mean, but it was only the first three minutes and I wasn’t too keen on seeing if it got worse! When he let it up, I said “Pull over! I’ll walk home!” Steam was coming out of my ears. I had never been that mad before! He tried to explain it, but I was so mad. He had a lot of work to do to get me to consider him as a boyfriend again. He let me drive his car, I wasn’t impressed with the Camaro itself, but I was impressed that he let me drive it. Most guys with muscle cars wouldn’t do that. He played the harmonica for me and had to pull out all the stops on that first date because it did not start well! The harmonica and driving his car went a long way.

What is your proposal story?

Danny:

We had been dating exclusively for six months. One day in July, Jenny says “We are getting married.” I was taken aback and after a while of talking said “Nobody tells Danny Tollefson what to do.” Then Jenny said “Okay, fine. Then I’m out of here.” and she got in my new Camaro and left! She didn’t tell me where she was going or anything, this was before cell phones. I was miserable the whole day and I called around and got a hold of her and asked her if we could talk that night. Jenny came out to the farm and at the end of the talk I asked “Okay, so are we engaged?” Jenny gave me a look and said “Yes.” We were married six months later; Jenny’s grandpa was the Mayor of Gaylord, so it was a huge wedding (like 600 people)!

Jenny:

I was living in Gaylord and just working for my Mom and Dad. Danny and I had been dating exclusively for six months at this point. I realized I was at a crossroads in my life. I had to choose between finding a career elsewhere or we would have to move to the next step. So that’s what I told Danny, “We either have to get engaged and move forward or we need to be done.” Danny responded, “Nobody tells Daniel Wallace Tollefson what to do.” So I left in his car. At that time I was driving his car because I didn’t have one. I spent the day with a mutual friend of ours and neighbor, Richie. I was telling Richie that it was over, and he said, “No, just sit tight, he’ll come to his senses.” That night he called and said “Okay, lets talk about it.” He listened to why I thought now was the time, me being at a crossroads and him being old enough to start a family. I asked him “how old do you want to be when your kids are playing sports and you want to be active with them?” (Little did I know he’d be so active in his late sixties!) Then he agreed and we got engaged.

Our first 20 years of marriage, we didn’t go anywhere! We couldn’t! We were broke and had so many kids. But Jenny never complained. That was cool. At our 20 year anniversary we started actually taking vacations together and have pretty much every year since.

Jenny and I did everything together; we never did anything without each other. Ever! [To this Jenny says “Hogwash! He went and played cards one night a week and bowled another night, that’s two nights out of seven. -Ed.]

Early in our marriage, we got into a big fight. At some point I said, “I don’t think I love you.” Jenny looked at me and said “You may not like me, but you will always LOVE me!” [Danny chuckles – Ed.] She was right.

About 15 or 20 years ago, I told Jenny “I think I’m going to have a mid-life crisis.” Jenny responded, “You aren’t allowed to have a mid-life crisis.” “Well, why not? Other men get one.” “Because you had too much fun before marriage. You have met your quota.” [Danny laughs – Ed.] That’s just who Jenny is.

Tell us about your injures over the years, you have quit a few big ones!

When I was 10 or 11, I was riding bike. I crossed the road and didn’t see this barbed-wire fence. It caught me by the neck.  According to the Dr. I scratch my jugular vein; my neck was cut wide open! It was cut from one side of neck to the other. I got up and held my hand over it, blood was shooting out from between my fingers. I found my dad and said, “I think I hurt myself”. My dad just about died. He ran to the house and told Mom (Mom was crying) and then he laid me down in the truck and drove like 100 miles per hour to the hospital.  Emergency surgery and I survived it. The thing that upset me the most about it was they cut my new Twins t-shirt off me. I loved that shirt!

When I was 20, I was working in road construction. I was a laborer in the hot plant, where they make the asphalt. I was in the hot paving storage container; they called it the gob hopper back then. I was knocked off and fell like 30 feet and hit a conveyor belt and broke my leg in half [Femur – Ed.]. I passed out immediately. When I woke up, I was covered. I asked, “What happened?” They said, “you got hurt.” I said “Okay, can I get up” and they said “no, you stay right there.” Nothing hurt until the ambulance came. When the ambulance arrived, they straightened out my leg and that’s when I went wild with pain. They didn’t know if I had internal bleeding so they couldn’t give me pain medicine. This was in Laramie, Wyoming. They took me to Cheyenne, Wyoming where they called my parents to get permission to perform surgery. If you can believe that! I was in so much pain! It was almost bad enough to lose my leg, but they were able to put a pin in through my hip and down through the bone and I managed to heal okay. I was in the hospital for a couple weeks and then went home and helped Dad haul sweet corn. I wasn’t supposed to put any weight on the leg. I drove the truck with one leg [manual drive truck – Ed.] and hopped up on the truck to level out the corn. I hopped around everywhere; I didn’t use the crutches.  Then I started walking before I was supposed to, but it all turned out okay.

One month before our wedding I dislocated my arm while wrestling with some buddies. I walked up to the house and said “I think I hurt myself”. My arm was hanging like 12 inches longer than the good one! So, we went to the ER and ended up having to postpone the honeymoon.

Later, I broke that same leg [cracked the tibia bone – Ed.] wrestling with Nick and Luke in the yard. They were both on top of me and I wasn’t about to let them turn me, so I put my leg out and heard something snap. I laid out in the yard for a long time hoping the pain would go away. When Jenny came home Nick and Luke come running up to her, “We broke Dad!”. Jenny walks up to me and says, “What are you doing?” I said, “I hurt myself, but I think it’ll go away.” Three hours later I crawled into the house and into the bathtub because I figured hot water would fix it. Jenny thought I was being pretty stupid about the whole thing. After the bath didn’t work, I said “okay, let’s go to the hospital.” They gave me a boot.

Then around two or three years ago I hurt my arm chasing pigs. A pig knocked me down and I put my arm out to catch myself and pulled the tendons out. It hurt like heck, but I thought it would be alright in time. Went to the Farmer’s Market and worked. I couldn’t raise my arm at all and finally called Jenny. She came and got me and brought me to emergency room. Sure enough, I pulled tendons out of rotator cuff and had to have surgery.

What is your favorite farming memory from when you were a child?

We had to pull weeds out in the fields, there was no chemicals at that time. I would drive a little Ford tractor with a trailer attached to it. My two sisters (Marcia and Janet) were riding on the trailer. Well the weight was distributed wrong and the pin in the hitch was coming out. I shouted back to the girls to move up. Janet didn’t hear me and asked Marcia “What’d he say?” Marcia said, “He said jump off!” So, Janet jumped off! She did like five tumble rolls! [Danny starts laughing – Ed.] It wasn’t funny, but it was funny! They just misheard me. Boy were they mad!

I don’t know if that’s a favorite memory, I don’t know that I have one.  I worked a lot. I was the only one in my class that had to do chores before school.

Danny on old Ford tractor

How did your family spend time growing up?

Maria, Janet and I spent lots of time by the lake [Marcia and Janet are Danny’s sisters – Ed.]. We had a little duck boat we called Lulu that we took out on the lake. We climbed trees and just had fun together.

Also, we worked a lot. We had to pull weeds, see chemicals didn’t come onto the scene until like the mid 60’s so we had to pull weeds in the fields by hand. The three of us were pretty close.

What did you want to be growing up?

Farmer. Or an electrician, I always thought they had a neat job.

What is the most different now from when you were growing up?

Social interactions. When I was growing up, our church youth group was everything. We would put on skits and just had a lot of fun together!

What was your favorite subject in school?

Math. There were answers, I love answers.

Did you get into trouble as a kid?

No, according to Mom, I was perfect. I didn’t get into trouble in High School either. It wasn’t until after High School that I started getting into some trouble, when I discovered girls and beer.

Danny’s Graduation Picture

Did you get an allowance growing up?

No. But I got a car my senior year, a Plymouth Valiant.

What is the most important lesson your parents taught you?

Work hard/work ethic. My religious belief. Next to kids, that’s the most important thing.

What is something surprising about you?

I’m not very outgoing naturally. I’ve had to learn to be outgoing because of the business, but I like to be alone on the farm just farming the land.

What is your dream for your kids and/or grand-kids?

To be financially secure and have a strong faith.

What makes you happy?

Grand-kids and everyone doing well.

I love that all of my five kids are very close and love one another. They talk to each other almost every day, work together, and genuinely enjoy each other’s company. That means a lot to me. I think that’s what makes me the happiest!